Kerala's Congress Leadership Tussle Turns into Internet Festival

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A meme joking that voters would now receive a "summons" from the Congress high command to decide the state's new chief minister said it all. The weeklong suspense has spilled far beyond the Delhi consultations, with memes, trolls, online polls and sarcastic commentary turning the leadership tussle into an internet festival. While the race is widely believed to be among senior leaders K C Venugopal, V D Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala, the prolonged silence has triggered an unusual wave of online sarcasm alongside growing curiosity. From Facebook comment sections to WhatsApp groups and Instagram reels, Kerala's politically hyperactive social media users appear to have collectively decided that if the Congress leadership will not provide answers, the internet certainly will. Much of the online activity has backed Satheesan, who led the UDF election campaign from the front. Under social media posts by Rahul Gandhi, thousands have demanded that Satheesan be named chief minister without delay. The trend is visible under posts by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as well. Even under posts unrelated to Kerala politics, including one on the NEET question paper leak, comment sections have been flooded with appeals seeking her intervention to ensure Satheesan gets the top post. Venugopal's social media page, meanwhile, has turned into a meme battlefield. Under one of his recent posts congratulating actor-politician Vijay, users from the state urged him to "stay away from Kerala politics". "Can you join the people of Kerala in this moment of jubilation by allowing Satheesan to take oath as CM?" one user asked. Another wrote: "Please use common sense and stay away from state politics." The online frenzy has also spawned crowdsourced "public voting" campaigns. Several websites and social media pages have launched polls asking people to choose among the three leaders. One such online poll, titled "thenextcm.com", crossed 1.28 lakh votes at the time of writing, with Satheesan leading by a wide margin. But it is the meme industry that has flourished the most. One widely shared troll styled like a gym advertisement featured all three leaders flexing their muscles. Satheesan sported a sharply defined six-pack, while the others were shown with prominent potbellies. The tagline read: "You can always tell who actually did the hard work." Another meme suggested that Venugopal's political positioning invariably benefits the BJP. It joked that the Kerala BJP wanted him in state politics while the national BJP preferred him to remain in Delhi. The meme became so popular that even BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar reacted to it on X. In a tongue-in-cheek Mission: Impossible-style reply, he posted: "I will neither confirm nor deny that this is true. " For now, while the Congress leadership continues its deliberations behind closed doors, Kerala's online public appears to have already delivered its verdict — loudly and creatively.